


All These Random Moments.

by Kendas



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-08
Updated: 2010-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendas/pseuds/Kendas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not one moment - not even one decision - that makes us who we are today, but a series of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All These Random Moments.

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** None of the characters or locations used in this story are mine. They belong solely to the imagination of J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers and Bloomsbury.

****

All These Random Moments.

  


_I wait for you at an_   
_unexpected place in your journey_   
_like the rusted key_   
_or the feather you do not pick up_   
_until the way back_

The Way Back, by Leonard Cohen  


  


Terry was fourteen when he first knew for sure that he was never going to like girls the way everybody else expected him to.

He was fourteen, it was the Yule Ball, and Mandy was looking up at him expectantly as they stood under one of the many sprigs of mistletoe decorating the Great Hall.

Fourteen, and he had this pretty girl in his arms who made him laugh until his sides ached and who could sometimes startle him with her skill Arithmancy. This girl, with curves forming in all the supposedly right places, and an adorable soft blush staining her cheeks as she bit into her lip and waited for Terry to make the first move. She was everything he was supposed to want at his age. She was his best friend, and he felt comfortable with her in a way he just didn’t with anyone else.

She was perfect, but at fourteen Terry just knew she was totally wrong.  


  


***

Terry was just turned fifteen when Anthony Goldstein brought his girlfriend at the time back to their dorm room and laid her down on his bed.

Terry was in bed with a case of Flygott’s Flu. Curled up under his sheets trying to sweat and sleep the virus out of his system - just like Madam Pomfrey had instructed - whilst the rest of his friends enjoyed their Saturday in Hogsmeade.

It was the girl’s giggle that woke him; lilting and high, but it stuttered at the end and turned into a gasp. Terry cracked one eye open and looked across the dorm to Tony’s bed. He watched as she arched her back, Tony’s hand moving under the grey jumper she wore. Disinterested at watching his friend make out with his girl, Terry closed his eyes again, intent on getting some more sleep and just being able to breathe normally again.

Except, he never quite got his eyes fully closed. Half way there they flared open again watching with new interest as Anthony sat back on his haunches, straddling the girl as he stripped off his shirt and snapped open the buckle of his belt.

Terry was fifteen and it wasn’t the first time he’d seen his dorm mate naked. Wasn’t the first time he’d seen another boy naked at all. Not even the first time he’d heard one moan like that. But it was the first time he’d seen thigh muscles flexing like Tony’s were, his arse clenching as he pushed inside the girl. And it was the first time he’d seen another boy’s cock like ‘ _That;’_ hard and leaking slightly at the tip, making Terry’s mouth go dry.

Before, Terry had known the reasons his kiss with Mandy hadn’t been anything more than a platonic brush of lips. But at fifteen, watching Tony, his hand silently slipping inside his PJ bottoms, Terry hadn’t been able to ignore it any longer. Had dared to put a name to it. Had dared to think that maybe!

***

  
It’s not even a month later when Terry starts watching _Him_ again.

Not Tony. Never Tony. Not in that way. Well, except for that once, and he still feels guilt flood his cheeks with blood whenever he thinks of that intrusion.

No, Terry’s attention’s focussed somewhere far less accessible than even Tony. Somewhere green and silver, with high arching cheekbones and slanting eyes. Somewhere cloaked in all the prejudice and expectation of their society. Somewhere his father would surely be gleeful about if only for the small issue that the object of Terry’s fascination had been born with a dick rather than a pair of breasts.

Terry used to watch _Him_ during their first year. Second a bit too. And, if he’s honest with himself, his eyes have always turned that way even when he wasn’t intending them to. Just brief glances, mild interest. It’s like he’s Terry’s north and somehow Terry always ends up back at him.

Only, it’s not just normal Ravenclaw curiosity pulling Terry’s attention _His_ way anymore. It’s not the game of trying to figure out one of Hogwarts’ more enigmatic characters that his housemates used to play. And maybe it wasn’t always just that anyway. Not for Terry.

But regardless of the details; the arguments with himself that it’s not a big deal – there’s still the fact that it’s a month after the incident with Tony that Terry really starts watching _Him._ With intent. Much as he’d like, he just can’t ignore that fact. Not in the present tense and not retrospectively.

***

  
It’s two weeks before the end of their fifth year and Terry first speaks the word he’s been tentatively using for himself aloud to another person.

He’s sat in front of her, his eyes fixed on his clasped hand as he builds up the courage to just say it. Tell someone. _Make it real._

His lips twitch, a wry, nervous laugh slipping from them as he thinks about what he’s about to do. About the fact that he’s really going to go through with this.

 _Merlin!_ He could still back out, right?

“I’m gay,” he says in the end. Forcing it out quickly - bubbling, hic-cup of a confession pushed out before he can have any more second thoughts. He’s still clinging to the amusement that the first person he’s telling is the same girl who made him admit it to himself for the first time. Better to focus on that than -

In those first few minutes after, he doesn’t dare meet Mandy’s gaze for fear of what he might see. It’s silly and completely without foundation, but it isn’t a life style choice that’s common within their world and even though he’d been sure before that Mandy would still be okay with him – that they’d still be friends – there is still this one remaining niggling thread of worry. A half dared formed ‘ _What if.'_

A small hand reaches out, cups his cheek, and Terry finally risks looking up.

“Thank you,” Mandy says, making Terry frown quizzically at her for a moment. “For finally trusting me enough to tell me.” She grins at him then, thumb still stroking his cheek, her voice full of mock exasperation. And Terry, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders, grins back, pulls her into a hug and just breathes.

“Missed that smile.” Mandy sighs, nuzzling her nose against the side of his neck. “You’ve been far too serious lately.”

Terry just nods, and keeps holding her, unable for once to put his feelings into words.

***

  
It’s not even two months into the new school term –Terry’s birthday still so far away as to seem unreachable - and the relief that came from Mandy knowing, from her acceptance, crashes and explodes like one of Neville’s famous cauldron disasters.

It’s two weeks to Halloween and Terry hears the word used derogatively for the first time.

No, that’s not true. He’s heard it before. Lot’s. A casual taunt thrown around the common room, across a table down at the Hog’s Head. Sometimes directed at him, sometimes not. But before it had never seemed to have the same meaning, the same inflection and intent. And before, whilst Terry had dropped his head and kept his gaze downcast when it was said, scared someone might see him blush and guess, he’d never felt the shiver of revulsion – sick fear - that came with the taunt.

They’re in the Three Broomsticks, Mandy and him grabbing a warm drink before they head back to school. Tony’s in the corner when they walk in, Daphne practically sitting in his lap she’s so pressed up against him. His friend waves them over, face a wide grin and it’s not until Terry’s pulling out a chair that he sees the group of Daphne’s house mates sitting at the table over.

It’s the sneer on Daphne’s face as she casts her eyes over Mandy that warns him. Daphne’s not so bad when she’s on her own, but it’s like she’s scared to be seen to think for herself when the rest of her house is around.

He feels Mandy tug his elbow from behind and when he looks back she’s shaking her head in a barely there movement. Her eyes flicking towards the bar and a small table in the back of the room near where Colin Creevy seems to be messing with his camera.

Terry turns, shrugging his shoulders at Tony, but before he’s even taken two steps back into the crowded room, he hears it. He thinks after that he should have expected it to have been Draco bloody Malfoy to bring him spiralling back down to reality.

“Look at Creevy,” Draco scoffs, voice full of disdain. “Fucking Mudblooded little faggot. Bet he’s been taking more pictures of Potter. I’m surprised the Weasel lets anyone else get that close to his little boyfriend’s arse.”

The rest of the table sniggers, Pansy brushing some invisible dirt from Draco’s arm and looking up at him with adoration.

Terry can’t breath for a minute. Not until Mandy’s hand finds his. Closes tight around it, and he tries to focus on the pain of her nails biting into his palm rather than the prickle he can feel rising inside him.

He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t dare. Not until they get to the table in the back and Mandy leaves him to get their drinks. Then, biting his lower lip so that he can feel something more than the numb, hollow buzz in his veins, Terry looks up. Looks across the room filled with Hogwarts students enjoying their day off, and straight into brown eyes that are watching him carefully. And Terry thinks, startled – curious. There’s a spike of fear that shoots up Terry’s spine and then the eyes are gone, back to looking disinterestedly at the rest of the Slytherins at the table.

At six months shy of seventeen, Terry realises that whilst his blood’s pure and his reasons back in fifth year for joining the DA were purely altruistic, they’re not anymore. Terry has just as much to lose if Voldemort comes back like Harry Potter keeps saying he will. Just as much too loose and just as much to fight for.

***

  
At seventeen Dumbledore’s dead and suddenly everything feels fragile. The society Terry has grown up in is sat on a precipice and about to break apart. Terry doesn’t know what’s coming, but the smell on the wind doesn’t promise anything good.

He doesn’t go straight home.

School brakes early due to the Headmaster’s death, but Terry’s parents are still in Prague on a business trip of his father’s. So, instead, Terry Owl’s them, says his going to stay with a friend and not to worry, he’ll see them in two weeks. He neglects to mention which friend. His father never has been keen on Muggleborn’s and he can only imagine his reaction to his son staying with one.

On the train ride back to London, and even in the car on the way to Mandy’s parents, Terry can’t help his mind turning to his father and how he’d take the news that his son is a raging homo. Usually, he tries not to dwell on this, but it keeps rising up; relentless and determined. He thinks sadly that this is never going to be easy, even under a more lenient rule than people like Draco Malfoy’s father favour. He wonders for a moment as they step out of Mandy’s brother’s car and up the steps to her parent’s Victorian terrace, if he wouldn’t just be better off leaving the wizarding world for good. Perhaps that would be easier.

He doesn’t say anything of his thoughts to Mandy, but as they step inside she cuts him a look and Terry knows she would never let him make that mistake.

***

  
It’s during the second week at Mandy’s that she wakes him up one morning by bouncing on his bed until he groans and rolls over, blinking up at her blearily.

Usually, it’s Terry waking Mandy up in the morning. Chatting excitedly to her in the Ravenclaw common room whilst she just groans; huddles down further into the blanket she dragged down with her, ducking the elaborate hand and arm gestures Terry throws about carelessly as he talks.

But Terry hasn’t been sleeping so good this past week.

His brain can’t stop ticking over about what’s coming. They’ve been having a copy of the Prophet delivered, but it’s not that informative, seems full of half truths and lies. Terry finds the disconnection from current wizarding events building a low ebb of anxiety deep within his gut. It’s that feeling that makes him realise that no matter how much easier things might be for him in the Muggle world, he could never leave his own behind.

“Got us a present.” Mandy grins, practically humming with excitement as she straddles the lower half of Terry’s legs and waves two bits of plastic at him.

For a moment, Terry pictures someone else straddling his legs. His mind bringing back the memory of Tony in the dorm, but replacing smooth pale skin with rich chocolate and hooded almond eyes. He shakes the image off, focuses back on Mandy, and her pieces of rectangular plastic.

He frowns and reaches out for them, pushing himself up onto his elbows, curious as to what they are. He’s seen Mandy’s brother pay for stuff with similar little things, but he can’t see why Mandy would be so gleeful about that.

“Uh uh, Terry. You need to understand the importance of these first,” Mandy intones seriously, pulling her hand back and keeping the cards out of Terry’s reach.

“Go on then, enlighten me,” he invites, cocking his head to one side and smiling lopsidedly.

“These,” she states, waving the little cards importantly again. “These my dear, Ter-Bear, are going to get us into the night of your life.”

***

  
At seventeen Terry kisses another boy for the first time and for a moment forgets all about the worrying events that have led him there.

The little plastic cards Mandy had been waving so enthusiastically that morning had apparently been a couple of fake ID’s her brother, Mark, had swiped from his Uni’s student union. And the night of his life was apparently a gay club in the city centre called ‘The Gale’.

“How did you -” Terry lets the question hang, unsure how to finish it. Unsure just which of the questions buzzing through his brain he should ask first. Unsure how to tear his eyes away from the two men that just walked past them into the club while holding hands.

Mandy smirks, her fingers catching Terry’s chin and turning his face back to hers. “Careful, or we’ll look exactly like what we don’t want to.”

“What’s that?” Terry asks, eyes flicking with wonder and curiosity over a six foot woman with what he’s sure is an Adam’s apple.

“A couple of underage newbies.” She laughs and pulls them over to lean again a wall.

“We’re not going in?”

“The only way I could get Mark in on this was if I promised him we’d have an escort to keep us, or rather, me out of trouble,” Mandy explains. “My cousin, Erin – remember I told you about her?”

Terry nods, still looking around the busy street wide eyed.

“She’s supposed to be meeting us here with her girlfriend, and I promised we’d wait for them before going in.”

The club’s like nothing Terry’s ever dreamed off. He can’t stop grinning and looking around at the other inhabitants. He wishes, just for a moment, that there could be something like this in the wizarding world, but then he tries to picture this place somewhere just off from Diagon Alley and can’t. The two just don’t fit together.

There’s some song playing that Mandy describes as a ‘ _disco classic_ ’. The singer’s voice is deep and rich as she belts out the chorus and everyone around them seems to go mad, shouting out the lyrics as more bodies press onto the dance floor. Terry gets shoved closer to Mandy and she reaches out, steadies him. Her hands settle on his hips before her grin shifts to something over his shoulder and she backs up. She tosses him a sly wink and then turns so that she’s dancing with Erin and Terry’s left alone.

Terry’s about to protest, when arms slide around his waist, a large hand flattening across his belly, and he finds himself being tugged back into someone. Terry’s breath hitches and he tries to lock eyes with Mandy because thinking about this is one thing, watching other people do it another, and then there’s this! And ‘ _this_?’ This is an entirely new level of real that Terry’s suddenly not sure he’s ready for it.

Mandy’s eyes finally catch his, softening slightly, before she jerks her head and makes a little twirling motion with her hand.

Terry closes his eyes and nods, not opening them again until he’s turned a hundred and eighty degrees and is looking up – and up - into the face of the owner of the hand that’s now slipping down and settling on the curve of his arse. He takes a deep breath and finds himself meeting a pair of hazel green eyes partially hidden behind a shaggy brown mop that puts his own to shame.

The guy smiles, leans forward slightly and Terry has this startling realisation that he’s about to be kissed. And it’s nothing like it was that time with Mandy. He wants this.

He tilts his head quickly, realising that he needs to catch up. It’s only when their noses bump that he realises he tilted the wrong way. And how much of a complete virgin could he look?

He pulls back, fighting down a blush, but then arms are pulling him closer again and there’s this wide grin just inches from his mouth; a mole below the guy’s right eye that’s just begging to be licked.

“You go this way,” the guy says, tilting Terry’s head and smirking slightly as he complies easily. “And I’ll go this way,” he adds, tilting his own. And now they’re so close that Terry can feel the guy’s breath ghosting over his lips and being drawn inside his mouth every time he takes a breath. “And we’ll just meet -” Lips brush his just faintly. A barely there - accidental touch because of how near they are. “- in the middle -” And now a tongue flicks out and Terry’s not sure if it was his or not, but his heart - _Morgana!_

“- like this,” the guy finishes. And finally they’re kissing. It’s slow and tentative and in complete opposition to the music and the bodies pressing in on them, but Terry smiles into it and moves closer, lets his tongue slide and curl. Thinks, ‘ _yes._ ’

***

  
Back at school, in September, and the kiss is just a faded memory. Too perfect and too innocent for Terry to believe it was real.

Nothing from before seems real, especially those two weeks with Mandy and that night in the club. Or, perhaps, it’s the present that’s the delusion because Terry just can’t understand how things could change so drastically in so short a time.

***

  
It’s six months into the term when it happens, and Terry speaks to him for the first time.

“A word, if you will, Boot.”

He’s spent seven years going to the same school with Blaise. Lost track of how many parties he’s been dragged to by his parents where he’s watched Blaise spend the entire evening trying to look as unimpressed as possible with the whole thing. Terry stands in the alcove Blaise has just directed him into. He feels goose bumps raise the fine hairs on his arms, and thinks it’s kind of pathetic that in all that time he’s managed to avoid even saying a simple ‘hello’ or ‘excuse me’ to the other boy and now he’s terrified of speaking for a whole other reason.

Terry leans back against the wall, forces his shoulders to slouch as he stuffs his hands into his pockets and tries to look relaxed. Tries not to look like he’s got something to hide. Like he hasn’t got a whole trunk full of things to hide from Blaise.

Blaise’s eyes pass over him - curt appraisal that’s brief and dismissive. Nothing in it that Terry cold misread as something more. Something that might make his stomach flip for an entirely different – thirteen-year-old girl - reason.

“I’m listening,” Terry say’s eventually when Blaise has still to continue and explain this little aside. Terry wonders for a moment if this isn’t some sort of plan to make him slip up. Unnerve him enough so that he incriminates himself. It’s a ploy he knows has worked with some of the younger students they’ve had reason to distrust, and Terry feels a moment of anger that Blaise apparently thinks so little of Terry to try it with him.

Something must have shown on Terry’s face because the next thing he knows Blaise is smirking and saying, “Relax, Boot, I’m not here to play games with you. And, if that were my intention, I’m sure I could come up with something a little more – creative and subtle.”

Terry shivers and for the first time since Blaise laid his hand on his forearm it’s not fear that’s coursing through him.

Blaise’s eyes narrow in on the movement, and Terry feels his face heat. He hears Mandy in his head telling him how he’s never been able to hide anything, and wonders how he’s made it through six months of school without being under more than just a passing suspicion as to where his allegiances lie. He knows damn well it can’t last much longer.

Blaise watches him a moment more before drawing back. He listens and then quickly and silently he casts two spells. Terry focuses on the wand work and it’s only the last few months practice at subterfuge that allows him to recognise the first as a Disillusionment Charm and the second as an area focussed sound dampening charm.

“I need you to arrange a meeting with Longbottom,” Blaise announces as soon as he’s finished the last wand flick. The magic still a tell-tale tingle buzzing and settling over Terry’s skin.

Terry tries not to blanch, instead furrowing his brow in feigned confusion. “I haven’t seen Neville in months, you know that,” Terry answers, feels a lump form in his throat, and just can’t manage to make himself look Blaise in the eye no matter how much he knows he should. Maybe he never allowed himself to be foolish enough to trust Blaise, but he suddenly feels ten times more stupid for allowing himself to hope that maybe Blaise was different. Rose tinted lenses and all that, he supposes, but the shock still cuts deep and Terry’s surprised at how hard the disappointment hits.

“Don’t play coy, Boot. I’m well aware Longbottom’s still within the grounds and leading his brave little band of rebels.”

Terry chews his lip, tries to quickly phrase a denial that doesn’t stink of confirmation. _Fuck!_ is pretty much all he can come up with and his hand instinctively slips and tightens around the stem of his wand. His eyes nervously flick up and over Blaise, catch the Slytherin’s eyes roll as he draws out an extended sigh.

“And, if I hadn’t before, I certainly do now.”

“I don’t know wh-”

“Boot. Please,” Blaise interrupts.

And this is it, Terry thinks. This is when he either gets handed over to Snape or manages to make a run for it. And really, what chance does he have in succeeding in the second option. Blaise would follow him and then he’d lead the Slytherin right to the room. Give up everyone just in an attempt to save himself. _So not an option,_ Terry thinks. He lifts his chin and holds his jaw tight, thinks of soft lips against his, the rasp of stubble against his jaw and hazel eyes that glittered with the reflection of the lights in the club. And at least he’s had that.

“Just because you’re somewhat skilled academically-” Blaise continues, and Terry could have sworn he caught something soften momentarily in Blaise’s face. Just a hint of a memory surfacing; Blaise sat with his friends in the Three Broomsticks after Mandy had led him away. “- and, I’ll admit, you’re apparently somewhat more gutsy than I’d once have attributed, but that doesn’t mean you can bluff an expert.” He pauses, then, “Look, you don’t have to trust me. Ask Longbottom, set the meeting up, and I can assure you he’ll allay your suspicions.”

Terry wants to ask why. Disappointment sparking into something irrationally green that roils inside his chest. Instead, he just concentrates on the fact he’s still breathing and Blaise is backing away.

Blaise turns, lifts his wand ready to dispel the charms, but he hesitates and looks back towards Terry at the last minute, free hand twitching at his side. “Watch your back. And make sure the meeting’s soon. Neither of us have much more time.”

***

  
In the end, Terry runs the same time as Blaise. Practicality has nothing and everything to do with it. The opportunities there, and he can’t miss it. What the opportunity is exactly Terry’s not sure he’s ready to name.

He never asks Neville. The look that passes briefly over his face when Terry mentions Blaise’s name is enough. Terry feels like he’s lost something and found it all at once.

***

  
Terry thinks maybe now things will be different. In a way they are.

Location and restrictions have all changed. Wider and narrower at the same time. And every night now when Terry wakes all he has to do is push himself up, and he can see Blaise across the room; green sleeping bag bunched and exposing the smooth line of the top of his back whist he rests.

But Terry never moves. Just watches until sleep draws him to lie back down once more.

Terry thinks that this is really something. All four houses together under one ceiling like they haven’t been since that sighting of Sirius Black during third year. He thinks that if they make it through this someone should make sure this is written about. Terry thinks it’s kind of monumental.

But it’s not. Not really. Not how it could be. Should be.

Terry’s stuff ends up next to that of the rest of his house. Blue-gold banners designating the part of the room that belongs to Ravenclaw. And it’s the same for the rest of the houses. Gryffindors sleep near other Gryffindors. Hufflepuffs by other Hufflepuffs.

Blaise sleeps on his own.

No green and silver banners flying to proudly declare his house, and only Neville dares to speak to him. Not even Ginny. The rest of their classmates either watching the Slytherin warily, or preferring to pretend that he’s not there because then they don’t have to address this strange turn of events.

Terry wants more than anything to not be like them. He’s not, but he is all the same.

***

  
When he stops it’s kind of anticlimactic.

Terry had imagined this big scene. Silence bubbling around the room, all eyes turned his way as he walked towards Blaise in this big gesture. He imagined Blaise’s gaze fixed on him and how impressed he would be by Terry’s bravery and unconcern for what everyone else thought of him.

How bloody grateful. How others would follow his lead.

In retrospect, Terry supposes that was kind of self-important of him, and he’s glad Blaise can’t read thoughts like that bald-headed man in that film Mandy took him to see what seems like a life time ago.

***

  
They end up talking a lot. Don’t have much choice. Neville had asked them to look into how they might strengthen and improve some of the subterfuge and stealth charms they’ve been using to move around the castle and pass messages to those on the outside.

Terry’s surprised that they’re working together on this. Neville had asked Blaise to look into it knowing he had a talent for the subject. It was Blaise who had suggested Terry’s input would be valuable also. When he finds that out, from Neville not Blaise, Terry’s heart flutters, his stomach jumps up into his throat, and he feels prouder than the day he got his Hogwarts letter.

“There’s nothing – It was just a thing,” Neville says carefully, eyes on Terry. He looks like he wants to go on, but isn’t sure how to.

Terry watches as Neville reaches up and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, and Terry nods. “So what Charms did you want us to look at first?”

***

  
Spending time with Blaise is the worst thing that’s ever happened to Terry.

Before... before it was just a crush. Blaise is beyond beautiful. All sculpted lines and regal elegance of one of the Egyptian pharaohs. And Terry can’t deny that the mystique of the other boy doesn’t hold its own appeal too.

But it was always more than that. Blaise stood out – intelligent and different in a way that Terry’s never quite been able to pin down to just one thing. Not until he saw him with Neville that first time, passing information and buying his way into refuge.

Now he’s spent time with him however, Terry falls in a whole new way.

It’s not that he knows much more about Blaise now after working with him. Blaise keeps it all business and avoids talking about himself or his reasons for being here and not with the rest of his house. It’s just that he’s more real. More accessible. Like Terry could just reach out and touch. And he thinks – more than he should – about what Neville said. What he didn’t.

***

  
Blaise says the thing he regrets most is missing lessons.

The comment catches Terry off guard. They’d been going over their seventh year Charm’s books and he’d just said it; quiet and mournful. Sounding like he might if he were talking about a grandparent who had died. The sincerity of it makes Terry smile. He imagines Granger would say much the same thing in much the same tone. Is probably complaining about that exact thing to the other two thirds of the Golden Trio right now. Wherever they are.

Terry says he misses fresh brownies and coffee.

“Coffee!” Blaise repeats, and it’s almost a groan. “Merlin, yes. Columbian with Muscovado sugar.”

“And bookshops,” Terry says back, grin widening. He looks over and sees the corners of Blaise’s mouth turn up just slightly, face soft and gaze faraway.

“The library. Getting lost amongst the stacks and finding a new book.”

Their eyes meet and Terry feels his face get hot. He thinks about getting lost with Blaise in the rows of books; leather bindings pressing into his back and dark eyes, blown out and rimmed with gold. “Do you really miss lessons?” Terry says after a beat.

It’s a moment before Blaise answers, sucking the end of the quill into his mouth while he ponders, drawing Terry’s gaze and thoughts away from whatever he’d just been asking. “The learning,” Blaise qualifies. “The opportunities,” he adds, then shrugs. “But I guess this year was pretty much a write off for that anyway.”

Later, in bed, Terry looks up at the ceiling and realises that neither of them mentioned home or their parents. For everything he learns about Blaise - all the disjointed puzzle pieces he scrapes together and dismantles into something that might make sense – he always ends up with a piece that comes from a different picture. Something that peeks his curiosity and makes him want to see more.

***

  
It’s funny - or at least, Terry thinks later, that someone must find the timing amusing – but it’s the night before the final battle when he finally gets the courage up to make his move and play his hand.

A day more and maybe this would have been – a ‘ _what if.’_ Redundant.

He’s eighteen and two weeks and, at the moment that he decides that this is it - that the possibilities are worth the risks – and gets up to cross the Room of Requirement to where he knows a certain emerald green sleeping bag lies occupied, he has no idea just how much will culminate in the following day’s events.

Terry bites his lip as he approaches his target, not quite able to believe he’s really doing this and worried that he’s maybe read the other boy’s looks wrong. It wouldn’t be hard. Not much to work with. He remembers sitting cross-legged in front of Mandy and the same thought flares in his mind as it did then; _Merlin! I can still back out, right?_

He pauses when he’s still ten feet away and just watches the slow steady rise of Blaise’s chest through the quilted fabric. There’s a book lying open and face down just to the side of Blaise’s pillow, like he abandoned it for a quick eye rest, but drifted off into something deeper. It’s something to do with history, Terry presumes as he reads the title, putting off his resolution those few more precious minutes. He’s not surprised by the area Blaise is reading up on. History of Magic at Hogwarts is an area of the curriculum that’s excelled in by few thanks to Binns’ teaching. But Blaise was one of the minority who seemed able to hold onto his passion for the subject even through the professor’s monotonous drone. What does surprise him is the realisation that this isn’t a History of Magic text that Blaise is reading. From the cover, it seems to be Muggle history and that - that was something Terry hadn’t expected.

He pushes forward again, forcing himself closer. He doesn’t hesitate this time, he can’t afford to. Ever since Neville brought Blaise into their fold, Terry’s been able to watch different aspects of him. Things he never got a chance to see before. And he’s developed the impression that Blaise is a somewhat skittish sleeper. Not that Terry’s spent much time watching him sleep. He’s not sure if he’s always been like that. That maybe it’s something from before Hogwarts. Terry’s considered the strong possibility that being a light sleeper is probably a good survival tactic to develop in Slytherin. But he’s pretty sure being the only member of a house that’s pretty much hated and distrusted by the rest of the rooms occupants has had some impact too.

He drops quietly to his knees, surpassing his own expectations of his stealth abilities. By now he’d expected to trip over someone’s leg, or shoe and end up gracelessly flat on his face. Knowing his luck, he’d have had his fall broken by a disgruntled Blaise. Clumsy is a word that Mandy’s often joked should be Terry’s middle name. But so far – so far Terry hasn’t put a foot wrong and the body in front of him is still breathing deep and even.

It takes a whole minute for him to drag up the willpower to reach forward. He counts every second of it before his hand finally stretches out, starkly pale against the green. It never has been his colour. Like yellow, green has always made his skin look slightly sallow and sickly.

Terry feels the sudden brace of fingers around his wrist. He hasn’t even tugged on the catch, his hand still hovering undecided between the metal zip and Blaise’s shoulder when it’s jerked away. Dark, shadowed fingers holding firm, twisting the skin against the bone in a sharp warning of pain whilst slithers of dark eyes blink up at him, narrow and wary.

“What are you doing, Boot?” Blaise asks. His voice low and still gruff from sleep, but all Terry can focus on is the wide awake glint of Blaise’s stare. And how can anyone look that awake when they’ve just been woken up. No hint of sleepiness still clinging to his face or the tight set of his shoulders. The hold doesn’t loosen, but Blaise’s fingers shift a fraction until it’s just the other side of comfortable.

“I -” Terry starts, but he doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t know the answer now that Blaise is looking up at him like that. Face neutral and blank. Terry feels something clog in his throat. Feels the urge to deny and flee rise, and he misses Mandy more than ever.

Blaise rolls his eyes back, closes them, his face turning up towards the ceiling. “You think this is a good idea?” he asks, dry, brittle laugh staining his words ugly.

 _No,_ Terry thinks. _Yes_.

Blaise’s chin tilts to the side, towards Terry. His bottom lip thins and stretches as he sucks it inside his mouth. Terry watches and thinks of all the reasons why this is the worst idea ever. Goes over the list like an old friend. All the ways that this could turn out wrong. Terry thinks he’s thought of every one over the past few months. _Years._ Looking at Blaise, deep pink poking out to wet his top lip then his bottom, he adds two new ones to the list.

“’s what I thought,” Blaise huffs out, thick drawl. He lets go of Terry’s arm and turns away. And that right there? That’s what Terry needed.

Terry bites his lip, thinks of shaggy hair, his back pressed up against a wall. Thinks of a soft smile and an instruction to ‘turn around.’ He closes his eyes and unzips the sleeping bag far enough for him to slide inside.

He lifts the flap back, concentrating on just being quiet and not on noticing the way Blaise’s pyjama bottoms are hung low on his hips - the dip of hip bone angular and stark as the candlelight of the room catches on skin, causes shadows to dance and throw it into bold relief. _So not looking._ Blaise’s eyes snap open, hold him still as any hand burning into his wrist.

“Here?” Blaise asks. “Fucking Merlin’s balls, Terry,” Blaise hisses, “I thought you were a bloody Ravenclaw.”

Terry hesitates, looks around and rechecks that there’s no sign of consciousness anywhere else in the room.

“Whatever you think I might want - Fuck, just go back to your own bed,” Blaise continues whilst Terry tries to keep the bile rising from his stomach into his throat.

Terry turns, lifts one leg up from where’s he’s kneeling, gets ready to stand and walk away. Except, he doesn’t and he’s not sure why. Could write a catalogue of reasons and he’s not sure one of them would be right. Would be all encompassing and true.

“No.”

Blaise looks up, arches his eyebrow in a slow, smooth movement, and Terry focuses on it right up until he gets distracted by the line of the tendons in Blaise’s wrist. The bend of his elbow as his arm stretches up, hand disappearing between pillow and head. He can just see the edge of the soft fleshy pad leading up to Blaise’s thumb and he swallows, throat working and cheek twitching as he turns his attention back to Blaise’s face and smiles.

Blaise isn’t like Mandy. Terry never needed anyone to tell him that. But it’s not the obvious differences that he pays attention to now; that make him lean forward and slide his hand into the opening of the sleeping bag. Knuckles brush ribs and Blaise’s chin tilts up, eyes unblinking as he watches Terry.

Mandy’s all soft reassurances; words and comforting touches aimed to make Terry breathe easy – relax - grin at her and pull her into a hug. And Blaise - Blaise just isn’t. Terry thinks himself a fool for ever thinking this could be a straightforward thing. He’s watched Blaise for most of the past seven years and he knows something of what Slytherin friendships – interactions - are all about. Blaise might not be touting all the prejudiced crap Draco and his cronies have sold their souls to, but in every other way he’s still a prime example of what it means to be a member of the less popular of Hogwarts’ Houses.

“No,” he repeats, surer and without his voice breaking this time because now he knows. Understands.

And then it’s on, Terry still feeling like he maybe missed something somewhere.

He’s trying to settle himself above Blaise, but it’s awkward. He doesn’t know where to look, can’t quite meet the slow smirk spreading over Blaise’s face. And where’s he supposed to put his legs? Do they go between Blaise’s, or should he kneel above, maybe place them either side and straddle Blaise. Kneeling means he can hoist himself up a little. His cock’s been hard since Blaise’s hand first tightened around his wrist, maybe earlier. Since lying in his own sleeping bad and thinking of what lay just the other side of the room. Since Blaise pushed him into an alcove and hissed ‘ _A word if you will, Boot.’_ And Terry’s not sure it’s polite to just press it into Blaise, worried it’ll make him seem too eager or assuming.

Right now, he feels so clumsy he kind of wants a hippogriff to swallow him whole because what was he thinking?

He remembers the toilets of the club Mandy had taken him to. The way the door had felt cold, lock pressing into his lower back as he was backed up against it. Jay edging his hand down the front of Terry’s jeans, smiling and whispering comforting – coxing - words. And all Terry had felt was terrified. Couldn’t stop thinking about all the dumb things he could do. Things so stupid Jay would stop – appalled at Terry’s lameness.

And Blaise isn’t Jay. If he does something dumb here he’s going to be running into this wizard for the rest of his life. If they make it through the war, that is.

He’s sliding his leg over – straddling is definitely the way to go - but Terry gets distracted because he glances down, eyes hooking on a fine trail of black hairs leading straight down to Blaise’s –

Terry stumbles, coughs. His arm buckles, and he falls forward, knee catching Blaise in a place that makes the other boy curse low and drawn out.

“Oh, Merlin. I’m sorry. I just... You see... I -” Terry rushes out, cheeks flaming hotter than ever and he really didn’t think that was even possible right now.

Terry pulls back, because this just isn’t happening. It was a really bad idea. Of all the ideas he’s ever had this one might just be the worst. And maybe, Blaise had a point when he’d questioned the location regardless of why he did so. Because this isn’t the best place to do this. And just because everyone in this room’s running and rebelling against the Death Eater’s regime doesn’t mean they’re all on board with Terry’s so called alternative life style. And there’s no going back if the wrong person catches them.

But then –

Blaise’s hands fasten onto Terry’s hips, pull him back. Pull him down hard against Blaise and hold him firm. And when Terry looks up Blaise’s jaw is still tight, but his eyes are dark and completely focussed on Terry, and he thinks, _’Hot!’_

“Planning on going somewhere, Boot?”

Terry opens his mouth to formulate an answer that he’s not quite sure will ever come, but Blaise cuts him off with thumbs that hook beneath his waistband, sliding it down. And Terry panics for a whole new reason. He can feel Blaise, the hard line of his - _Oh, Merlin!_ \- pressing into Terry’s thigh.

“I haven’t... I don’t... Have you – before, you know?”

Blaise chuckles, soft rumble vibrating through his chest into Terry’s and making his skin prickle – ultra-sensitive. Terry can’t help wondering if Blaise is laughing at him and the way he seems incapable of getting a complete sentence out right now. He’s always prided himself on his ability to at least be eloquent. His teachers always complimented him on his delivery in his essays, but now it seems he can’t even get past two words.

Blaise smiles and it’s unusual. It’s not the usual smirk that Terry’s caught a thousand times – the one that’s imprinted onto his memory. It’s softer - subtler. Just the corners of his lips tugging up for a so brief moment, then Blaise schools it away and shifts.

It happens quick.

Terry’s still caught by that half smile, and he doesn’t register the ankle hooking around his until it’s too late. Blaise flips them quick and smooth, slides a leg between Terry’s and moves forward until their lined up perfectly, cocks aligned. And _yeah,_ Terry thinks, this works. This is the way to go.

“Relax,” Blaise soothes, bites Terry’s jaw and lets his tongue slide down over his Adam’s apple in a long lick. “I’m not going to - fuck you.” Blaise’s voice is low, dirty as it draws out the last two words and his tongue licks against Terry’s mouth.

“It’s not that I’ve never... I mean I haven’t, other stuff, but not – ‘ _That.’_ It’s just, have you?”

Blaise cards his fingers through Terry’s hair, and he wants to purr it feels that good. Terry’s hand settles on Blaise’s hip, groin arching up slightly as Blaise’s hand catches in tangle of curls that tugs Terry’s scalp. Blaise shakes his head and it’s ridiculous how much better Terry feels knowing they’re coming into this on the same page.

“You have no idea how good you look bent over a book in those fucking glasses,” Blaise says, teeth gritted like it hurts him to admit that. Like he’s fighting saying it at all.

Terry scrunches his forehead and thinks, ‘ _What?’_ “Glasses?” he asks out loud. “I haven’t worn glasses since fourth year.”

Blaise doesn’t deem that worthy of an answer, just slides their trousers down until they’re loose around their knees and then wraps his hand around both their cocks. And Terry? He just doesn’t care. Sees white and spills embarrassingly fast into Blaise’s palm.

***

  
This is what stands out.

There’s a flare of green light, an incantation he heard once in third year and hoped never to hear again, and Terry has time to remember not enough – not nearly enough - before the dull thud echoes through the hallway.

When Terry opens his eyes he has his back pressed up against rough stone work. A hand spread flat and wide over his heart, holding him up. There’s a thumb smoothing over his cheek, and the look on Blaise’s face is more open than Terry had ever thought possible.

Terry’s eyes move past Blaise to the figure lying held in time on the ground, face fixed in a firm line; no time for the shock to register on it. Terry thinks he recognises him from the Christmas Party he attended with his parents two years earlier. Something Jugson.

“Fuck, Boot!” Blaise exhales. Then, “Come on. This way.”

It’s not the time to grin, but Terry can’t help wanting to even if it makes him flush with guilt.

***

Mandy doesn’t come back until five months after the dust of Hogwarts has settled and been charmed away. The broken parts haven’t all been rebuilt yet, but work has started. Things moving on - moving forward - though the names and the memories are no less dull yet.

Terry has his arms wrapped around her, nose buried in the neck of her jumper; the scent he’s missed for too long.

He doesn’t want to ever let go.

In the dreams he’s had, this always ends with green.

Mandy pushes at his chest and thwaps him on the arm hard. “Can’t breathe,” she hisses in exaggeration, voice breaking into a bark of laughter.

Terry pulls back, but only slightly. Just enough so that he can look Mandy over again; check she’s real and okay.

“So, you and Blaise, huh?” she repeats with a grin, and Terry can’t help the blush that spreads; happy and honest.

“Yeah,” he answers, eyes looking up at her through his lashes. “Bet you never saw that coming, Brocklehurst.”

“But you’re happy, right?”

Terry looks down to where she’s twining her hand in his.

The morning after, or the morning before depending on how you look at it, he remembers Blaise nudging him awake; the hairs on his abdomen catching uncomfortably in the dried come there as his muscles shifted and caused it to crack. He can still hear Blaise’s voice full of warning and caution as he pushed Terry away and told him to go back to his own sleeping bag. The coil of fear from the night before rising again in his throat.

And it’s not easy.

It’s not like the moment Voldemort fell at Harry’s hand the world became this sparkling perfect place. And it’s not like even if it had Terry’s love sick enough to think that this thing with Blaise would ever be plain sailing. He was there the night Blaise woke gasping from a nightmare after the letter from his mother so, Terry knows, Blaise isn’t without his issues. That even without everyone else, them being together would still be tentative and unsure.

But he remembers the other moments too. The moments when Blaise’s face isn’t so shuttered, and Terry looks up, grins and says, “Yeah. Yeah, I really am. Come on, I want to hear all about Canada.”

 _~Nox~_


End file.
